Saarinen House and Garden Visitor's Guide

Saarinen House and Garden Visitor’s Guide

Welcome to Saarinen House, the restored home of Finnish-American designers Eliel and Loja Saarinen. Saarinen House exemplifies Eliel Saarinen’s belief that every aspect of design should work in harmony— from the plan of a city to the architecture of a house and its smallest details—even the silverware pattern. By combining ideas from the Arts and Crafts Movement with more modern Art Deco elements, and through careful use of related colors and repeated geometric shapes, the Saarinens designed their house to be a total work of art. The Booths and The Saarinens: Builders of Cranbrook Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950) was already well established as an architect in Finland when, in 1922, he entered a competition to design the Chicago Tribune Building. He won second place and used the prize money to immigrate to Chicago in 1923, eventually joined by his wife Loja (1879-1968), daughter Pipsan (1905-1979) and son Eero (1910-1961). Shortly after their arrival, he was invited to teach architecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he caught the attention of art patrons George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth, whose son Henry was one of Saarinen’s architecture students. George Booth had married into the Scripps publishing family and, in time, earned his own fortune as publisher of the Detroit News as well as a chain of smaller Michigan newspapers. The Booths resolved to use their resulting wealth to found educational and cultural institutions on the Bloomfield Hills estate they called Cranbrook, after Mr. Booth’s ancestral home in England. They engaged Saarinen as chief architect, who ultimately designed Cranbrook School for boys (1925-1929), Kings- wood School for girls (1929-1931), Cranbrook Institute of Science (1935-1938), Cranbrook Academy of Art (1925-1942), and Cranbrook Art Museum and Library (1938-1942). He also Saarinen House [ 1 ] [ 2 ] formulated the Academy’s curriculum and served as its first president from 1932 to 1946, headed its Department of Architecture and Urban Design from 1932 to 1950, and designed Exterior Architecture numerous non-Cranbrook commissions. and Landscaping During the Saarinens’ time at Cranbrook, Loja had an equally important career as a textile designer. She founded and directed the Department of Weaving and Textile Design at the Decorative elements are integral to the architecture, and Academy (1929-1942), as well as Studio Loja Saarinen (1928-1942), a separate business that wove include patterned brickwork and leaded glass windows with her textile designs, including commissions for the buildings that Eliel designed on the campus. triangles, squares, and rectangles. Similar patterns, shapes, She remained active professionally until 1945, accepting commissions from designers such as and the color of the brick are echoed inside the house, linking Frank Lloyd Wright, and exhibiting work at venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art the inside and outside. Like the interior, the landscaping of (1934, 1935 and 1940) and the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (1939). Saarinen House has been restored to its original 1930s design scheme (mostly chosen by Loja), with plantings that soften the transition from nature to architecture, contributing to the Saarinen House and house’s unity of design.

its Restoration [ 1 ] Each building on Academy Way, including Saarinen Saarinen began designing his house at Cranbrook in 1928, House, has different, unique patterns in its brick- and he and Loja moved into their completed home in fall work, doors and windows. 1930. It was built concurrently with the adjoining house where [ 2 ] On the south side of the house, a covered walkway sculptor Carl Milles lived, and the cost to build both was connecting Eliel Saarinen’s architecture studio to $140,000—considerably more than the typical cost of $6,250 those of the Academy physically embodies his idea for a Detroit-area four-bedroom house of brick and stone. that Academy students and faculty should live and The Saarinens’ daughter Pipsan never lived in the house, as work in close proximity with each other. she had married architect J. Robert F. Swanson in 1926 and [ 3 ] The paved courtyard served as an outdoor room they resided elsewhere in Bloomfield Hills. The Saarinens’ where the Saarinens entertained guests. French son Eero, however, had a designated bedroom where he doors leading to the studio and dining room stayed when on break from studying at Yale University (1931- minimize the distinction between indoor and 1934; B.F.A., 1934). Eero’s bedroom became a guest room when [ 4 ] [ 3 ] [ 5 ] outdoor spaces. he married in 1939. After Eliel died in 1950 and Loja moved out in 1951, subsequent presidents of Cranbrook Academy of Art [ 4 ] The statue in the center of the courtyard is lived in the house and made many changes. Finally, in 1977, Kivi’s Muse, by Finnish sculptor Wäino Aaltonen Roy Slade became President of the Academy and initiated a (1894-1966). Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) was Finland’s process of restoration. The full restoration took place between most prominent poet, with a status equivalent 1988 and 1994, under the direction of Art Museum Curator to Shakespeare. and current Director Gregory Wittkopp, and returned the [ 5 ] Ivy softens the walls and gives them texture house to its appearance in the mid-1930s after the Saarinens and color, much as the wall hangings do inside had added the finishing touches. the house. [ 8 ] [ 9 ]

The Studio The studio has three parts: the alcove off the living room, which Loja Saarinen dubbed the “Cozy Corner”; the main area where the Saarinens worked and entertained; and Eliel’s office at the back. Both Loja and Eliel spent much The Living Room of their time in the studio; all of its spaces thus evoke their and Book Room professional lives. [ 16 ] The Cozy Corner offered a comfortable space The living room and book room combine elements of Art Deco design with ideas drawn where the Saarinens entertained guests ranging from the Arts and Crafts Movement and ultimately from the Saarinens’ Finnish heritage. from their grandchildren to Cranbrook Academy Despite these varied sources, the Saarinens’ use of related colors and geometric motifs unifies of Art students and faculty to architects such as the design. The spacious proportions and formal layout of the living room are well suited to Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Alvar Aalto. its use as a reception hall where the Saarinens hosted parties. [ 17 ] Originally a piano was located where there is [ 6 ] The book room is a smaller, cozier space where the Saarinens and perhaps a [ 7 ] [ 6 ] now the small portable bar buffet, designed by guest or two could enjoy the late afternoon sun during their daily coffee break. son-in-law J. Robert F. Swanson, from which the [ 20 ] [ 19 ] [ 16 ] [ 18 ] [ 17 ] [ 7 ] All of the wooden furniture in these two spaces was handcrafted at Cranbrook Saarinens often served martinis late in the day. by Swedish cabinetmaker Tor Berglund using Eliel’s designs, except for the globe [ 18 ] The studio is restored in the way that the stand (designed by the Saarinens’ son-in-law J. Robert F. Swanson). Such fine Saarinens had it photographed; however, for craftsmanship was an ideal of the Arts and Crafts Movement, but the exotic daily use, the rug was stored away and there woods are characteristic of Art Deco and include greenheart, African walnut, were three drafting tables at which Eliel could rosewood and ebony. design architecture and Loja, textiles. When the Saarinens hosted parties, the [ 8 ] The rug’s pattern and colors echo the exterior brickwork, the chair upholstery, drafting tables were removed, creating an impressive reception space that and the rows of books in the book room. It forms an axis leading the eye toward included tubular metal chairs designed by Eero Saarinen for the auditorium of the fireplace and wall hanging, but intentionally is slightly off center, making it the Kingswood School for girls. seem less static. Like most of the other textiles in the room, it was designed by [ 19 ] This rug, made in Finland in the eighteenth century, is called a ryijy (RYE-a) for Loja Saarinen and woven at Studio Loja Saarinen. the way it is hand-knotted and woven. It is one of several historical ryijy rugs the [ 9 ] The sofa is based on a Finnish tradition in which rugs were draped onto the Saarinens collected. Most of the rugs that Loja designed, including the ones in floor so they could be folded up over the sitter’s feet and lap for warmth. Here, the studio, were made using the same ancient technique. however, the rug is decorative rather than functional. [ 20 ] Originally the walls displayed Eliel’s presentation drawings of buildings he had designed in Finland. The restoration instead includes reproductions of his Cranbrook designs. The Dining Room Eliel Saarinen took into account every aspect of the [ 12 ] The table has an octagonal base but a circular top to lead the eye upward to dining room design, choosing rich, warm colors and the circular light and finally to the gold-leaf-covered dome. Because the table’s repeating squares, octagons and circles to unify the shape was important to the design of the room, Eliel designed four arch-shaped [ 10 ] design. The dining room was the perfect space for the extension leaves for the perimeter that allow the table to remain circular when elegant luncheons, teas and dinner parties the Saarinens expanded, unlike most round tables. [ 14 ] frequently hosted. [ 13 ] The wall hanging, designed and woven by Finnish artist Greta Skogster (1900- [ 10 ] The room is actually square, but is made octagonal 1994), depicts birds in a tree, as if to mirror the view through the French doors [ 12 ] by the four corner niches. These complement opposite to the trees beyond the courtyard. the room with dramatic bursts of a color that the [ 14 ] French doors make for a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor Saarinens called Chinese red. spaces for entertaining. The dining room is aligned on an axis with the courtyard, [ 11 ] The rug is square with a pattern of concentric but also with the living room. octagons that resembles snowdrifts on the [ 15 ] Beyond the swinging door is the butler’s pantry containing some of the Saarinens’ [ 11 ] octagonal courtyard pavement. china and their Frigidaire, proudly made visible to guests when the door swung [ 15 ] open. Modern materials were used in the pantry, including Monel metal for the [ 13 ] countertops and battleship linoleum for the floors. [ 23 ]

The Master Bedroom and Master Bathroom For their bedroom, the Saarinens gave their twenty-year- old son, Eero, one of his first commissions, allowing him to design the beds, nightstand and table, and the dressing The Upstairs Hallway table bench, lamps and mirror. In these pieces, his talent and distinctive style are already evident and foreshadow The second floor of the house includes the master bedroom and bathroom along with his success as an architect and furniture designer. four additional rooms and a guest bathroom at the end of the hallway. Next to the master bedroom is the room that Eero stayed in when on break from college and before he [ 23 ] With these lamps and mirror, Eero transforms married in 1939. The other rooms that are not included in the current restoration were used his mother Loja’s dressing table into an altar to as a guest bedroom, a sewing room, and the housekeeper’s bedroom, which was accessed glamour and elegance. They reveal Eero’s under- by stairs from the kitchen rather than from the hallway. standing of the use of indirect lighting, which Eliel skillfully employed elsewhere in Saarinen [ 21 ] In this alcove Eliel and Loja ate breakfast, brought to them every morning at House. Scaled for the tabletop, the torchères 7:30 a.m. by the housekeeper. reflect light onto the ceiling, subtly illuminating [ 22 ] All of the doors originally displayed designs by Pipsan Saarinen Swanson. the sitter’s face. Restorers were unable to determine the exact motifs, so they used ones that Pipsan designed for the Kingswood School for girls, which her father Eliel The master bathroom, designed by Eliel Saarinen, is a designed around the same time as this house. stunning example of the 1930s-era belief that modernity equaled “clean,” in two senses of the word: “hygienic and sanitary” as well as “visually sleek and free of clutter.”

[ 24 ] The bathroom’s layout is perfectly symmetrical and detailed with squares and rectangles. [ 25 ] Surfaces are lined with smooth, easy-to-clean tiles in neutral shades of off-white and gun- metal gray. The sinks are faucetless, which gives them a [ 22 ] [ 26 ] streamlined appearance. Water comes from an opening near the top of each basin. The counter- tops are Vitrolite, an opaque glass used as cladding for buildings.

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